Q. When did We.the Pigs start? Tell us about the history...
V: About five years ago? I found Martin on a community online (Helgon) for people who like alternative music. He had put up links to a couple of songs he’d recorded and asked if someone could sing on them. I listened to the songs and loved them and offered him my left arm to try. A few days later I sent him ”Fly”.

I think it got silent for almost a year after that until I got a message from him wondering if I was interested in playing live at a small indiepop festival (Cosy Den) in Stockholm since the promotor there (Mattias Jansson) had heard the song and liked it.…and to make things clear. Me and Martin had not even met face to face and lived far apart.
Anyway. We said yes to playing at the festival and decided to meet in my hometown Gnesta.
I can finish this ramble by telling that when we finally met, at my moms house and were supposed to rehearse, I was so shy I couldn´t sing a word. I even tried singing behind a door and under the kitchen sink but it was impossible.

M: I think you will find that I and Veronika will have a slightly different backstory. But for me it started with the need to play something more, hm, melodic might be the right word. I was playing in a band called Bombstrike (with our drummer Fredrik). But I missed playing something more popish so i just started to make some songs at home. They sounded very different from the stuff we do now (I even think there is a song on some compilation cd somewhere where I sing, but not quite sure if it made the cut in the end). I quickly realized that someone else needed to sing though...

Veronika came along by chance. We met at an online forum for people with alternative (life) styles (goth to indie to black metal and so on). I had found myself unemployed and to kill everyday boredom I decided to get up every morning and record a song in the vein of the band Broder Daniel (https://youtu.be/OVPDAkuoK8Q). I then asked on that forum if anyone wanted to sing. And there Veronika popped up Emoticon smile. I think the first song she recorded vocals for was Fly who is on the 7" released by Discos de Kirlian. Maybe Veronika remembers more about that than me.

Q: Who are your influences?
V: I guess from the beginning it was mostly Broder Daniel (a swedish band) and shoegaze in all its form. Recently its been more like ”can´t we just play krautrock for ten minutes”?

M: Apart from the obvious Broder Daniel influence on getting it started I would have to say that it's the usual bunch, TJMC, MBV, Sarah records and so on. Noisy and sweet at the same time. But I wouldn't say that we try to sound like this or that. Or what do you say?

Q. Make a list of 5 albums of all time…
V: Difficult but the ones I´ve played most in my life must be:
Electrelane – No Shouts, No Calls
Nirvana – Nevermind
MBV – Loveless
Ride – Nowhere
JAMC – Psychocandy

M: That’s impossible. But I can try to make it about some albums that have had a real impact on me in some way.
Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks; when I was like 8-9 years old I got a bunch of records. It was mostly soft hard rock, you know Kiss, Deep Purple, Mötley Crüe and stuff like that. But when I put this on it just moved me in a way that no other music had. In hindsight I think that's when the seed to play music at all started. The first song I ever played in a band in middle school was God save the queen. But we quickly moved on to more brutal stuff after that. And now I can’t even remember the last time I listened to it.

Fields of the Nephilim - Elizium; this is the album I’ve listened to the most in my entire life. For a while in my teens I always fell asleep to it, just to press play the first thing I did when I woke up. All houseparties (under my or my friends control) ending with dim lights, this album and endless smoke and incense. I still return too it (and their other albums).

Dissection – The Somberlain; when we didn’t listen to Elizium we turned to this album. Some of us preferred Emperor – ItNE och Dark Funeral – SotBA, but this was my favourite. And still is. We kept the dim lights and endless smoking whichever album we chose though.

The Cure - Wish; not their best album but the one who lured me in. At first I didn't like Robert Smiths vocals (and I hated Friday I'm in love when it came on on MTV). It all changed though when I joined a crush to see them at a festival in -96. I had met her the day before and was head over heels in love. We sat quite far in the back making out in the and I was happier than ever before. Didn't get her number though...stupid me. When I came home I listened to the album at a friend’s house and was dead certain that we started making out to Apart (turned out later that they never played that song that night), so I would just listen to it over and over to try to catch that feeling again but no. (I actually did meet her at another festival a couple of months later. But I was too shy back then to make anything happen...). And now Cure is definitely one of my all-time favorite bands.

Dischange - Seeing Feeling Bleeding; the album that definitely got me into punk. I had listened to quite a lot before but when this came out everything fell in place. It also helped me go back and listen to earlier punk too appreciate it in another way. And nowadays the album that spawned this (Discharge – Hear nothing…) is definitely one of my favorites of all time.

I would also like to add that besides Sex Pistols I still listen to these albums without being nostalgic. There still are few albums in their genres that come close to these albums.

Some other album that might have made the top five list are:
Coil – Musick to Play in the Dark 1&2 / Astral Disaster, Current 93 – Soft Black Stars / All the Pretty Little Horses, Mayhem – De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas , Sisters of Mercy – Some Girls Wander By Mistake / Floodland, Cure – Disintegration, Discharge – Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing, Placebo – Without You I’m Nothing, Entombed – Left Hand Path, Slowdive – Just For a Day, Swans – White Light From the Mouth Of Infinity, Einstürzende Neubauten – Haus der Lüge / Tabula Rasa, No Security – When the Gist…, The Jesus and Mary Chain - Psychocandy.

But this can change from day to day, and pretty much from hour to hour. Whatever I want to hear next is the best album at that moment. But this list is representable of albums that I always come back too, and still love as much (if not more) as the first time I heard them.

Q. How do you feel playing live?
V: Terrified.
First time we played (actually in Tallinn) I had been scared for so long that I must have burned all my stress hormones. Finally, walking up on stage, I saw this huge spider crawling around on top of my microphone. Normally I would have freaked out since I´m afraid of them -but I just looked at it and thought ”oh that could become a problem”. Then I gently lifted it off the microphone and dropped it to the ground.

The gig itself was a disaster. Everything was delayed and we didn´t get to soundcheck. It was a nightmare and sounded horrible. When we finished our last song and were fleeing the stage, someone in the band asked the audience permission to play our first song AGAIN because of all the technical difficulties in the beginning. -I´ve never been closer to murder then at that particular moment in my life.

M: We haven't played live that much. And I think it's only one time with a full band. It would be fun to play more often though. But I don't think that we will sit down and organize a grand tour anytime soon. But if someone wants us to come play then we'd love to come!

Q. How do you describe We.the Pigs sounds?
V: Like regression to puberty. I guess that´s why my lyrics are so naive they make me cringe. And I always felt this ”teenage angst” in Martins songs.

M: I want it to be noisy, kind of aggressive (maybe intimidating is a better word) but at the same time filled with melodies and cuteness. But I'm not sure that's how we sound to others. Are we close?

Q: Tell us about the process of recording the songs?
V: Martin recorded the music at his home. From the beginning I think he gave himself a mission to record one song per day for a period of time being unemployed and these were the songs we started with.

He sent me songs online, I sang on them and sent them back…

When we recorded our debut ep I was in Malmö and the guys were in the studio in Stockholm streaming everything to me via Skype. It was sweet since I couldn´t be there in person and felt sad missing out on the experience.

M: The 7” is recorded in a studio with our friend Niklas (who also plays some stuff on the recording). But for songwriting and demos it’s mostly me at home. And then I send it to Veronika who adds vocals.

Q. Which new bands do you recommend?
V: I´m gonna reply with a beautiful song I really love: ”Out There” by” My Red Dress”.

Another one of my favourites from last year is G.L.O.S.S.(https://girlslivingoutsidesocietysshit.bandcamp.com). Their demo Girls Living Outside Society's Shit is so filled with emotion that it's almost too much to take. But don't miss out if you're into punk or music of/for the outcasts in general.

M: I don’t have a song or artist that I want to do. We have played Turn her down (in the vein of The Coupons) and Be my baby live. For our next show we plan on playing Territorial Pissings. None of these have been planned or anything. We like them, start playing them and that’s it. I know that Veronika wants play a Misfits song though Emoticon smile

Q: What are your plans for the future?
V: Play live a couple of times and prepare for that. A follow-up ep is somewhere there in the future too, Perhaps creating a video

M: I would like to play some shows. And then we have four songs left from the same recordings as the 7”. We have talked about releasing them on Discos de Kirlian after the summer but who knows what will happen ‘til then. If we don’t sell any of this 7” I guess he wouldn’t be interested in releasing one more.

It would also be fun to come in contact with labels for release outside of Europe. If anyone would be interested in that please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Q: Any parting words?
V: Never pass on an opportunity to have fun only because you´re scared.